The secret is that such characters have never wandered far from nature; they have kept within sight of that “immortal sea that brought us hither;” they constitute an aristocracy spontaneously recognized by all; and they triumph as poets, artists, and influential social beings, not through the exercise of any rare and wonderful gift, but from obedience to the simple laws of truth—to the primal sympathies, and to a kind of innate and glorious confidence which lifts them above ignoble fear and selfish tricks. The true hero, poet, artist, the true man or woman, who seem to the multitude to be peculiarly endowed, differ from those who do them voluntary homage, chiefly in this unconsciousness of self; this capacity to be ever “nobler than their moods;” this sympathetic breadth of life that enables them to go forth with a kind of elemental power and enter into other forms of being; the principle of their existence is faith, not dexterity; sentiment, not calculation. It will be seen that we recognize a moral basis as the source of Jenny Lind’s fascination; and if we were obliged to define this in a single word, perhaps the lexicon would furnish none so expressive as the homely one—_truth_. But we use it as significant of far more than the absence of falsehood; we mean by it candor, trust, spontaneity, directness. We believe that Jenny Lind inspires sympathy in spite of her petite figure, not altogether because she warbles enchantingly, and has amiable manners, but also on account of the faith she at once excites. We perceive that love of approbation is not her ruling impulse, although her profession might excuse it; but that she has an ideal of her own, an artistic conscience, a love of art, a musical ministry to satisfy and accomplish, and that these considerations induce a nobler ambition than co-exists with mere vanity. It is said that the remarkable novel of Consuelo, by George Sand, is founded on the character and history of Jenny Lind. Whether this be so or not, the theory of the tale, the guileless devotion to art as such, which stamps the heroine with such exalted grace, finds a parallel in this famed vocalist of the North; the same singleness of purpose and intact clearness of soul, the same firm will and gentle heart are evident. Much, too, of her success is attributable to the philosophy of Consuelo’s _maestro_—that to reach the highest excellence in Art, the affections as well as the mind must be yielded at her shrine. There is a subtle and deep relation between feeling and expression, and the biographies of those who have achieved renown in the latter, under any of its artistic forms, indicate that it has embodied that within them that found no adequate response in actual life. The highest efforts of the poet and musician, are confessedly the result of baffled or overflowing emotion; disguised, perhaps, as to the form, but clearly evident in the tone of their productions. Mozart and